Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Festival 中秋节 (Zhōngqiū jié) falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, the full moon nearest the autumn equinox. It is the second festival of the year for many families, after the New Year: a public holiday, a reunion, and a night spent looking at the moon. Mooncakes — dense pastries filled with lotus-seed paste, red bean, or a salted yolk — are given and eaten then. The filling is a local argument; the shape is round because the moon is round and because “round” is also “reunion”.

The story told with the cakes is that of Chang’e, who drank the elixir of immortality and flew to the moon, where she lives with a rabbit. Children learn the story; adults eat the cake. Lanterns, less numerous than at Yuanxiao, still go out. In southern China and among overseas communities the night is as important as the New Year for getting everyone into the same room.

The Gregorian date sits in September or early October. Lanterns on this night are fewer than at the Lantern Festival that closed the Spring Festival; the hub lists both.